Reviews by uhhhellurr

almost the definition of a hit or miss album for me. some of the songs were kind of cool psychy throwbacks and some were incredibly dull electronic-music-adjacent tracks that a dude is whining over. unfortunately the latter is most of the album and the former are only glimpses. so ultimately, not really my thing.

a solid enough rap album. it's a little corny at times but the title track is a classic for a reason. the rest of it is pretty decent, but at the end of the day, not a whole lot to remark about.

as is with other stooges albums, this is a really raucous and fun time. very noisey at times, especially the last track which is mostly just noise. fun, aggressive, everything you would want out of a stooges album. i am new to the stooges and i am learning that i do appreciate their music, especially as an influence on more aggressive music afterwards. neat!

see this is the exact kind of stuff i love to listen to in this project. an album i otherwise would have never listened to or even known about. is this album mindblowing? no. is it an interesting sample of music from another country? yes, absolutely. what i really liked is that it feels like a 70s spin on traditional indian music. there's some funky stuff here, for sure. does feel like corny 70s music sometimes, but i'm into that. really pleasant to listen to and is definitely relatively unique amongst all the other albums on this list. engaging and really fun to listen to.

i've been getting more into david bowie's music lately and especially after the handful of albums i've already gotten in this project, so i was really eager to listen to another. and... it was good. i've heard some great bowie and this one, to me, does not get quite up to those highs. don't get me wrong, there are some great tracks on here - i love 'queen bitch,' 'oh! you pretty things,' and 'life on mars?' - but a lot of the rest of this album is just not the pinnacle of bowie. there's a lot of softer stuff here, which isn't bad, but i found myself wanting more of the aggressive, glam-type stuff that i love bowie for around this era. that being said, i still think it's pretty great - but not to the immense heights that bowie can get to.

pretty new to prog as a whole and before this, i was really only familiar with peter gabriel's hits so i was interested to see what i was going to get out of this one. i was kind of blown away! there are some great prog moments on here, some poppier moments, some really big swings that don't really land (i'm looking at you, 'excuse me.'). it's not a perfect album but i was really blown away by the highs. of course, 'solisbury hill' is the big one here and i was familiar with that, but i really adored 'moribund the burgermeister,' 'modern love,' and the really thrashy-disco-y track 'down the dolce vita.' overall, really artistic, really confident in being weird and non-standard.

nice 90s britpop album. nothing mindblowing here. i'm american so i was unfamiliar with this one but it sounds like they were at least pretty popular in the uk at the time. it's very reminiscent of a lot of what oasis and blur were doing at the time period, but i definitely felt it was a step down from what i've heard from those two groups. not bad! just not the pinnacle of music either.

cool album and definitely unique. thundercat's bass playing is, of course, the highlight here. it's fun and funky and he is showing off a lot of his technical prowess here. a lot of the songs here are fun too, the highlights for me being, 'them changes,' and 'friend zone.' that being said, there's not really anything here that takes it from purely good to great. it's an interesting album and i don't think it ever gets boring, but it also doesn't blow me away either.

cool punk record. didn't really do anything to compel me to love it but it's short and sweet and full of attitude. it was a fun ride, I almost wish it was longer!

i'm decently well-versed in wilco's discography but i had never encountered this one before. i really liked how 'country' this album is. i know that jeff tweedy was originally in a country band before wilco, so it feels pretty natural and i enjoy the involvement of banjo and other more country instruments here. the album has the same jeff tweedy attitude that you get on most other wilco albums. my only gripe with this album is that the crop of songs is a bit hit or miss and i think honestly this album would have been better if it had been distilled to a single disc.

as an 00s indie music enjoyer, i'm a little particular about what i enjoy and what i don't. even though at the time, i liked a lot of music that was similar to the national, i never actually listened to them until now. the album wasn't bad, but was also not really my thing. it was pleasant enough but really didn't leave much of an impression. to me, it felt like standard indie fare for the time. not an all timer for me, but acceptable. but really, that's all it is to me, acceptable.

i really don't like being a negative nancy but really this is music that i genuinely hate listening to. for years boomers have told me that 1970s pop music like the carpenters or barry manilow was schlocky, cheesy, drivel that was not worth listening to. and yet, i find that music more compelling and genuine than this. this era of pop metal has dominated classic rock radio for the last couple of decades and really killed my love for the radio format that had an absolute grip on me as a teenager. this shit is so corny and so uncool to me and always has been. it doesn't sound cool, it doesn't give a compelling reason to listen to it. it just assumes you will think it is cool by listening to it. well i don't subscribe to that. hard pass

i'm a fairly big steely dan fan and i have to say, this is probably my dark horse pick for favorite steely dan album. i think it fits a nice balance between the more catchy rock music and jazzy side without going overboard either way. all the songs here are really great - 'bodhisattva,' 'the boston rag,' 'show biz kids,' 'my old school,' and 'king of the world,' are all all-timers for me and i think compete with the best of what steely dan had to offer. of course, with any steely dan, the musicianship is great and the songs are smooth but can be bitingly bitter ('show business kids making movies of themselves, you know they don't give a fuck about anybody else'). just an all time great record, in my opinion.

a decent enough 00s indie album but not a lot really caught my ear. the highlight here clearly is 'dreaming of you' and the rest i could really take or leave. the production wasn't my favorite, but wasn't awful. the vocalist's voice seems like it often gets compared to jim morrison or eric burdon, but for some reason is not as compelling a voice as either of theirs. it's not awful, but mostly it's pretty unremarkable.

i'm not super familiar with blur's output beyond a handful of songs and obviously what damon albarn went onto with his next musical endeavor. so i didn't know totally what to expect with this one. wow! i was totally blown away. really fun, really great record with a bit of a sneer. what i really adored is that this album is so obviously influenced in a lot of the late 60s british music that i adore - in particular, i hear a lot of Kinks influence here which definitely endeared this album to me. i can say i will definitely be back to this album and i look forward to exploring blur's discography in the future!

a neat album. my second dexys album of the project and i find i really like their style. they are very unapologetically british but their hooks are great and the music is quite sensible. this album i enjoyed a lot but there were some artsier and slower sections that i didn't care for as much. but when the horns and the fiddle hit on this, it's pretty great (like in the climax of 'the waltz'). i also really liked the title track, which has a fun interpolation of the piano riff from 'werewolves of london.' it's not my favorite album of all time, but i enjoyed it!

i am not a rap or a hip hop hater. i respect game regardless of genre. but is this a joke? this album sounds like a mixtape that some kid in middle school recorded thinking he was the next big name in rap. the beats are really lame, dull, and flat. the rapping on here is dismal. i would love for someone to change my mind but every british rapper i have ever heard has dogshit flow and sounds like the american stereotype of a british person. 'oi i'm right chuffed' type beat. come the fuck on. he's sing rapping and can't even hold a tune. it sounds like when white youtubers did a rap song in the advent of youtube. once again, is this a joke? i can't believe this album was even considered to be held in the same esteem as 99% of the rap on this list. it's an insult to actual rappers. i think this is what rap sounds like to people who hate rap. god this is awful.

really cool instrumentals here with totally bizarre vocals on top. i just don't think that tim's voice really fits this album at all. if you took this album and removed tim buckley's vocals and put a soul singer on top, i think this album would be pretty good, but with him singing, it's a bit rough to listen to. a lot of times it sounds like a cartoon character singing. not soulful, just kind of goofy. the album, beyond that, is not bad. it's just kind of awkward to listen to.

I am a really big Kinks fan and I love this album but I can also recognize that I don't think they are firing on all cylinders quite yet on this one. It's still great and I love the very baroque-y harpsichord on here. There are some great tunes and some that are a little out of character for them, which I appreciate them trying different things. Of course, the highlight here is 'Waterloo Sunset' but I also really love 'David Watts' and 'Death of a Clown' as well. I don't think there's a bad song on here, but I also don't think it's perfect either. I still love it to pieces though.

definitely a lot less 'electronic' sounding than most electronic music i've ever heard and an interesting spin on the formula that is very tango-forward. that being said, i was a bit bored out of my mind with the repetitive nature of most of these tracks, even with the added bonus of jazz improvisation over it. just not my thing, really.